KEY ISSUE

How many times have we poor conveyancing solicitors received an irate telephone call from overwrought 'key refusniks' who have arrived at their new house before the money arrived with their seller's solicitor? This weekly outbreak of Friday completion rage frays our nerves and sours a relationship with our clients that, until completion, may well have been excellent.

After all, if things are perceived to go wrong at the last minute, we take the blame and the client will go elsewhere next time.

There must be a solution to the problem, almost inevitable in a long conveyancing chain, of the client arriving at Dunmovin before the money arrives with the seller's solicitor.

May I suggest that there is.

As we have formulas A, B and C for exchange, could we not have formulas Y and Z for completion? How about the solicitor at the bottom of the chain faxing a formula Z undertaking to his seller's solicitor, promising that the money is on its way or, if waiting for mortgage money to arrive, confirming that he has sent his certificate of title, and pledging to send the money as soon as the mortgage money arrives? On the strength of this, the seller's solicitor releases the keys and sends a formula Y undertaking to his seller's solicitor in terms that he has received a formula Z undertaking and himself undertaking to send his money on as soon as the money for which he is waiting arrives.

I suggest that the solicitor who receives the formula Y undertaking immediately releases the keys and passes up the chain an undertaking in similar terms.

However long the chain was, keys could be released as soon as the seller's solicitor received an appropriate undertaking.

Pick holes in the suggestion, but please could someone come up with a workable idea that makes completion rage a thing of the past.

James D.

Jacoby, solicitor and notary public, Penzance, Cornwall